In-game campaigns can result in upt to a 60 percent increase in awareness for a new product, according to a Double Fusion and Nielsen Interactive Entertainment study (via MediaBuyerPlanner). Though all ad formats had significant impact, animated 3-D advertising insertions achieved twice the recall of static billboards.

In-game advertising has been gaining attention in recent months. In July, In-game ad developer Massive Inc. launched its first full-motion video and audio ads in a major videogame release. More recently, The Jack Myers Media Business Report 2006 Marketing and Advertising Spending Forecast predicted that the fastest growing media segment will be in-game advertising.

The new study looked at a variety of advertising insertions within the downloadable version of London Taxi, a PC game published by Metro3D. A pre- and post-exposure study explored changes in ad awareness, recall and purchase intent for a Procter & Gamble's Flash Car Wash, a new cleaning product distributed in the U.K.

Positive perceptions of brand attributes for the product such as being "easy to use," "time saving," "convenient" and "more effective than traditional methods" all showed small but consistent increases.

General perceptions of in-game advertising are relatively positive: In the pre-survey, 50 percent of respondents agreed that in-game advertising makes a game more realistic; 21 percent disagreed. Likewise, 54 percent agreed the in-game advertising "catches your attention," and 17 percent disagreed.